Tag Archives: Lebanese Forces

Samir Geagea’s Assassination Attempt

Head of the Lebanese Forces narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in his house in Meaarab, Keserwein, earlier today.

While taking a stroll outside, Geagea heard gunshots. So he ran for a safe place only to find the spot he was standing at had two bullet holes.

The security of his house was not breached. But the attempt is believed to have been taken out using high-tech equipment that can establish a perimeter of up to 4 kilometers. The Lebanese army is currently sending its helicopters to search the woods surrounding the area for possible suspects but the dense forests make the task extremely difficult.

The team that tried to assassinate Geagea obviously knows what it’s doing and has possibly done it before.

Now I ask – are we back to the assassination period in Lebanon where every single politician that has the guts to speak out against certain factions and regimes gets shot down? Are we back to a time where some people think gunning down Lebanese top politicians will get the people to cower away and not fight for their rights anymore?

Samir Geagea is the only Lebanese politician whose opinions, since he got out of his forced imprisonment in 2005, haven’t spun like a weather vane. He’s the only Lebanese politician who has asked the people for forgiveness for anything his party might have committed during the civil war. He’s the only Lebanese politician who served jail time. He’s the only Lebanese politician nowadays whose rhetoric doesn’t cower away from telling things like they are. He’s the only Lebanese politician who doesn’t equivocate over his beliefs.

I never thought I’d be this upset with such news. Why? Because I never thought it would actually happen. But now that Geagea has been targeted for assassination, years after the latest figure in Lebanese politics was killed, I cannot but be disgusted by the cowards and the filth of society that have tried to kill such a man.

I address them directly because I know they’re reading this: you disgust me. If anyone needs to die, it’s you – your guns, your backward mentality and your fear of those who can speak out against you.

They know who they are.

Samir Geagea lives. And his resolve will only grow stronger. His supporters will only grow more determined.

MTV Lebanon Produces Music Video for Women Rights with Participation of MP Sethrida Geagea

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MTV has recently unveiled their latest contribution to the current legislative efforts for a law to protect women from all forms of abuse, notably marital rape, soon after International Women’s Day.
To help them advocate for such a cause, they’ve enlisted the help of the female MP who has probably worked the most for such a law to see the light: Sethrida Geagea.

Geagea’s role in the music video is perhaps minimal but it’s a reflection of her commitment to the cause at hand, which brings me back to a point I had mentioned previously: the only way for the women of Lebanon to have true influence is to assert political power, which can only be achieved by voting in more women to parliament, who need to be as energetic and feisty about their rights as MP Geagea is and not a corresponding puppet to the political block they’re part of.

The Lebanese Forces Pioneering

On April 2nd, the Lebanese Forces commemorated the party’s disbanding.

As part of the proceedings, many people spoke about the importance of this party in the lives of many Lebanese and its vital role in the many years that it has been active. I will not go into those speeches, but they were very engaging. At one point a priest told a story about a woman who asked to go into a solitary cell at a convent. Three days later, she came out and told this priest how horrible those three days were and she wondered how the Lebanese Forces leader, Samir Geagea, could handle staying in worse conditions for more than seven years at the time. Geagea ended up being imprisoned in solitary confinement for over 11 years.

The Lebanese Forces have always been a highly organized party, as evident by their many events and the acclaim they get based on their level of organization.

However, that’s not where they’re pioneering. After all, many other parties in Lebanon are highly organized, albeit in a different way.

The Lebanese Forces are set to become the first party in Lebanon where the base elects the party’s leader. And that to me, is pioneering.

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The Lebanon Seating Chart Issue

Welcome back to fifth grade, Lebanon style.

Just when you thought certain politicians couldn’t get any sillier, they surprise you. Gebran Bassil and Co refused to participate in the honoring ceremony of Patriarch Sfeir because they were seated behind Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces parliamentary bloc and of the Lebanese Forces.

Some people are trying to rationalize this as putting Geagea in front of them is a breach of protocol as Bassil is a minister, whilst Geagea is not. However, Geagea is head of a parliamentary bloc of more than 1 MPs, one of them even beating Bassil in the elections by a huge margin (it was not even close and yes, I still love to rub it in some people’s faces).

Moreover, why would, say, Boutros Harb, who also beat Bassil in the elections by an even bigger margin and is also a minister, want to be equated because of protocol with someone like Gebran Bassil?

Moreover, imagine Hassan Nasrallah, on such an event, seated in the third row because he is not a minister or a member of the parliament, just a head of a party and parliamentary bloc, like Geagea. Quite ridiculous, right?

Besides, since when did Gebran Bassil obey protocol? As I said, he got hammered in the parliamentary elections and yet, even though his party leader had asked that those who lose in Parliamentary elections do not try to become ministers, the formation of the government was suspended for a couple of months just to make him a minister. Again with the hypocrisy…

You’d think that Gebran Bassil and Co would swallow their overgrown and metastasized pride at least for the day when their patriarch is being honored, in the last days of him being a patriarch. But I guess expecting that much from Bassil would be optimistic to the point of foolishness…

Stillborn Nation?

You’re Lebanese. You wake up every day and, wherever you are, your mind revolves around the same thing: what’s happening in your country. If things are going well, you worry they’d go bad. If they’re bad, you worry they go even worse. We always worry. We always try to imagine we can get things to change. We try to make things change. We have tried. We felt we succeeded at one point. And then everything came crumbling apart.

Life in Lebanon is like a chess game. Those who stick it out till the end mentally are those who triumph. I’d like to think this is not the end. I’d like to think that everything all the thousands of martyrs died for is not going down the drain. I’d like to think the people we looked up to did not lose their lives for a country that was always stillborn.

I mean, who are we kidding? Have we ever been truly a nation? We, Christians, ruled for a while. We did not rule fairly. So the civil war erupted. You can believe the cause of the civil war to be whatever you like. But what is definitely sure is that conflict is rooted in injustice. People who feel they are equal do not need to revolt. Then began the Sunni rule of the country. And soon enough, other people “felt” they were subject to injustice, issuing a cascade of events leading to what’s happening today. Have we ever been truly united? Ever since I can remember, I’ve never heard of my country other than being a division of camps. You remember those movies about rival summer camps across the river competing for a certain prize? that’s how things have always been. That’s how things will always be.

I’d like to imagine that a radical change in the “operating system” of this nation is enough to kick it into high-gear. But then we can’t even agree on what type of alternate nation we want.

I know many people who feel sad today. They feel sad because they see their country crumbling and they can’t do anything about it. I am one of those people. You put up a face through the mess. But deep down, you don’t remotely feel well. You feel as if your vote has been taken away. You feel as if all your work in the past five years is suddenly worthless. And because of what? because a certain group felt “as subject to injustice”?

You – we – are now the Opposition again. I believe we always were the Opposition. We excel at being the Opposition. There is nothing we do better than being the Opposition that inspires people’s need to change, instilling in them the will to fight for their country, for their rights, for their every being.

And honestly, even though the previous opposition called itself that way, I believe it did not even deserve the title. An opposition is basically in power when it was the power to crumble a government, which it did.  An opposition does not use the street in an abusive manner via a fully conscious decision, which they did. An opposition does not cry wolf every time it thinks something might possibly happen if a certain scenario were to unfold, possibly damaging its status – and with crying wolf we mean making everyone freak out. An opposition does not really get to choose who runs what in the country. But they did. An opposition should not get a choice in who takes on certain legislative positions, but they were given a choice and their choice was acted upon because, as I’ve said many times before, March 14 felt that certain rights of certain parties need to be respected – like deciding who gets to represent them.

So for all matters and purposes, Hezbollah and Co were not an opposition. They were as much in power as the March 14 movement was. Following Newton’s third law of motion, they were the action and March 14 were the reaction. March 14 couldn’t act because anything they did meant an implicit threat using an arsenal of weapons that’s all too frightening – even for a military power, such as our neighboring state. Hezbollah and Co were not oppressed. They were actually enjoying a stay in power since the early 1990s, even calling for a demonstration on March 8, 2005, to thank Syria for its work in the country – a work that left at least a major sect of the country, Maronites, in ruins after years of political persecution. Hezbollah and Co even lost a general election, even after being shown as frontrunners in many polls.  This means the majority of the Lebanese people didn’t want them to rule. And that was not respected as well.

So for those who are pissed, let me say this… I understand you. And I feel you. But don’t be. We, as people and movement, will be triumphant. Because at the end of the day, what is right and correct will be triumphant. And we are the only ones who, in time, can bring out this country from its everlasting stillbirth.